This invention relates in general to shredder devices and, more particularly, to a new and useful shredder construction for automatically sorting and shredding thin paper sheet items such as valuable papers, currency and bank notes which includes a modular housing having a means for sequentially receiving the items and selectively diverting and shredding sheets.
A device is known from German published application (DT-OS) No. 2634375 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,030) in which a shredder is provided at the end of a secondary transportation path which branches off of a main path. The destruction of items, more particularly pieces of paper money or bills, which are no longer fit for circulation but otherwise genuine, immediately at or in the sorting device has decided advantages since the sorted bills would otherwise require the same expensive security needed for handling genuine bills until their final destruction. At any rate, there is a possibility that the money or bills sorted out in this manner might be fraudulently manipulated during transport from the sorting device to equipment for demonetizing the bills or to a furnace. The problem is not completely solved even with the known shredder which is integrated in the sorting device. Upon leaving the belt transportation system of the known device, the bills sorted out for unfitness are directed or fall past a light sensor and then pass between interengaging shredding cylinders of the shredder where they are cut to 2.5 mm wide strips. The bills leaving the transportation system might therefore be branched off before they enter the shredder, and thus be saved from destruction. In the prior art device, it has been attempted to eliminate this possibility by accommodating the entire shredder in a closable housing which is usually locked to prevent fraudulent manipulation. It is evident that even if such a measure is useful, however, it is not totally satisfactory.